Abba

Today’s song is ABBA’s Soldiers from The Visitors album, dating from 1981. It’s one of only a few 3/4 ABBA songs, and it reflects on the fact that society does not recognise the work of the military who “write the songs […] and sing the songs that you and I won’t sing”.

Today’s song is ABBA’s Kisses of Fire, the B-Side to the 1979 single Does Your Mother Know. It has one of the best modulations of all ABBA songs in my opinion! When I taught at Mearns Castle we did a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream combined with ABBA songs and this song featured, complete with that all-important modulation!

This will rank among the less well-known of my 365 Songs collection! Så Glad Som Dina Ögon (“as happy as your eyes”) is a pre-ABBA song from 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog. Here’s a version of the original if you’re interested. I hope you enjoy something a bit different today.

Today’s song is the 1976 ABBA song When I Kissed The Teacher. Often listed as one of Benny Andersson’s favourite ABBA songs, this song was the opening track on the Arrival album. It’s perhaps not the best-known of all the ABBA songs I’ve played so far, but I hope you enjoy my version.

A bit of a different song today: it’s ABBA’s Lay All Your Love On Me, but not quite in the 80s disco style that you may be used to. Ranked as one of the greatest dance songs of all time by Slant Magazine, this track made if to #7 in the UK charts, and was curiously released only as a 12″ single. I’m sure I’ve still got this rare 12″ single somewhere!

With Bang-A-Boomerang I’m “returning” to ABBA today. It was recorded in 1974 for the ABBA album, but was then selected as a potential song for the 1975 Melodifestivalen in which the song representing Sweden in Eurovision is chosen. Having won the contest in 1974, ABBA did not want to take part, so they gave the song to another band managed by their producers Polar Music, Svenne & Lotta. The song was placed 3rd in the Melodifestivalen, went on to become a hit for Svenne & Lotta.

Yesterday was the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo and there have been many remembrance services and reenactments over the past few days. While I don’t want to trivialise the serious nature of these services, the reports of this bicentenary did make me think about another well-known Waterloo, so that’s the song I’ve chosen to play today.

Described as the quintessential Eurovision song by musicologist Dr Harry Witchel from the University of Bristol, Waterloo was ABBA’s winning 1974 Eurovision entry. The song tells the story of a girl who is about to surrender to love, just as Napoleon did at Waterloo. ABBA’s performance at Eurovision was completely novel: audiences were not used to flashy costumes and choreography, and until the early 70s all countries had to sing in one of their national languages. Waterloo broke the mould in many ways, a mould which has continued to be broken ever since! Given the more poignant nature of yesterday’s bicentenary I’ve decided to make my version of Waterloo a bit different from the original. I hope you enjoy it.

Today I’m doing my own take on ABBA’s People Need Love. This was the first single released by the band, then known as “Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-frid”, which admittedly wasn’t as catchy as “ABBA”. It went on to appear on their 1973 album Ring Ring. I hope you enjoy my laid-back version of this song.

… ah aah! I’ve spent most of the past 24 hours in a plane back from Las Vegas so I’m running more than a bit late with today’s song. I’ve obviously prerecorded this one – I don’t quite have the energy to play anything tonight! It’s Abba’s Knowing me, knowing you which dates from 1977. This was the first Abba song to deal with the break-up of a relationship, soon to be followed by classics such as One Of Us, When All Is Said And Done and, of course, The Winner Takes It All.

Like An Angel Passing Through My Room is a fascinating Abba song. It went through a variety of styles and lyrics from nursery rhyme, through piano ballad to disco anthem, before it ended up as the haunting version on The Visitors album. Benny apparently feels it is one of the best songs he and Björn wrote in their Abba years. You can hear a special remix of these different versions on the remaster of The Visitors album. It’s interesting to note just how produced all of these demos versions were, and how much experimentation went into finding the right sound. It’s also another example of how a good melody can work in many different styles. Anyway, here’s my version which is more in the style of the version we know.